This thesis explores the relationship between inhalation amplitude and turn-taking in spontaneous multiparty conversations held in Estonian. Respiratory activity is recorded with Respiratory Inductance Plethysmography. The main focus is on how inhalation amplitude varies between the inhalations produced directly before turn onset compared to the following inhalations within the same speaking turn. The results indicate a significant difference in amplitude, realised mainly by an increase in inhalation end lung volume values. One of the possible functions of this pattern is to signal an intention of taking the conversational turn. Another could be a phrasing or grouping function connected to lower inhalation amplitudes within turns.

Creakiness is a well-known turn-taking cue and has been observed to systematically accompany phrase and turn ends in several languages. In Estonian, creaky voice is frequently used by all speakers without any obvious evidence for its systematic use as a turn-taking cue. Rather, it signals a lack of prominence and is favored by lengthening and later timing in phrases. In this paper, we analyze the occurrence of creak with respect to properties of the respiratory cycle. We show that creak is more likely to accompany longer exhalations. Furthermore, the results suggest there is little difference in lung volume values regardless of the presence of creak, indicating that creaky voice might be employed to preserve air over the course of longer utterances. We discuss the results in connection to processes of speech planning in spontaneous speech.

The present study investigated the timing of backchannel onsets within speaker’s own and dialogue partner’s breathing cycle in two spontaneous conversations in Estonian. Results indicate that backchannels are mainly produced near the beginning, but also in the second half of the speaker’s exhalation phase. A similar tendency was observed in short non-backchannel utterances, indicating that timing of backchannels might be determined by their duration rather than their pragmatic function. By contrast, longer non-backchannel utterances were initiated almost exclusively right at the beginning of the exhalation. As expected, backchannels in the conversation partner’s breathing cycle occurred predominantly towards the end of the exhalation or at the beginning of the inhalation.

This study explores the relationship between inhalation amplitude and turn management in four approximately 20 minute long spontaneous multiparty conversations in Estonian. The main focus of interest is whether inhalation amplitude is greater before turn onset than in the following inhalations within the same speaking turn. The results show that inhalations directly before turn onset are greater in amplitude than those later in the turn. The difference seems to be realized by ending the inhalation at a greater lung volume value, whereas the initial lung volume before inhalation onset remains roughly the same across a single turn. The findings suggest that the increased inhalation amplitude could function as a cue for claiming the conversational floor.

This thesis deals with developmental, universal, grammatical, and functional factors involved in the acquisition of L2 syllable structure. More specifically, using speech data from Spanish and Chinese learners of Swedish, the thesis examines the production and development of syllable onsets and codas—that is, syllable margins. In doing so, the present work draws on various theoretical considerations and empirical findings from research on L1 and L2 acquisition, phonology and phonetics, language variation and language typology. The thesis includes three empirical studies, all of which are based on longitudinal conver­sational data. Study I deals with the acquisition of word-initial /sC(C)/ onsets by one native Spanish speaker, whereas Study II and Study III focus on the acquisi­tion of word-final codas by three native Chinese speakers. Study I and Study II both showed that onset and coda length and phonetic environment are influen­tial factors in the production of syllable structure, while sonority may not be as reliable a predictor of production difficulty. Next, both Study I and Study III provide evidence of a U-shaped rather than linear development of pronunciation accuracy. This pattern is interpreted as an effect of initial increase in fluency, with more focus on content and less on form. In addition, Study III showed that L2 proficiency is related to the epenthesis-deletion differential. An increasing ratio of epenthesis-to-deletion is the first-order indicator of increasing L2 profi­ciency during early stages of acquisition, but increased target-like production becomes the first-order indicator of development at later stages. Finally, Study III showed that learners are aware of potential ambiguity resulting from simpli­fication in different grammatical/functional categories. Codas that are essential for the retention of semantic information are preserved through higher accuracy rates and higher relative levels of epenthesis errors.

6.

Abrahamsson, Niclas

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Centre for Research on Bilingualism.

Research has consistently shown there is a negative correlation between age of onset (AO) of acquisition and ultimate attainment (UA) of either pronunciation or grammar in a second language (L2). A few studies have indeed reported nativelike behavior in some postpuberty learners with respect to either phonetics/phonology or morphosyntax, a result that has sometimes been taken as evidence against the critical period hypothesis (CPH). However, in the few studies that have employed a wide range of linguistic tests and tasks, adult learners have not exhibited nativelike L2 proficiency across the board of measures, which, according to some, suggests that the hypothesis still holds. The present study investigated the relationship between AO and UA and the incidence of nativelikeness when measures of phonetic and grammatical intuition are combined. An additional aim was to investigate whether children and adults develop the L2 through fundamentally different brain mechanisms-namely, whether children acquire the language (more) implicitly as an interdependent whole, whereas adults learn it (more) explicitly as independent parts of a whole.

On the basis of their review of studies, Mayberry and Kluender (2017) propose that the human language learning ability becomes severely compromised if it is not developed in tandem with brain development in early childhood, but that it functions more or less flawlessly, even in adulthood, if language acquisition had at one time proceeded according to the maturational timetable. Mayberry and Kluender therefore suggest that the critical period hypothesis (CPH) for language is unambiguously tied to the timing of L1 acquisition, but that its relevance to L2 acquisition is less clear, the implication being that the well-documented AoA effects in the SLA literature are due to non-maturational (i.e., psychological, experiential, cross-linguistic, etc.) causes.

This study deals with the development and recoverability of word-final codas in Chinese-Swedish interlanguage. The relation between consonant deletion and vowel epenthesis is investigated from both a developmental perspective and a grammatical-functional one. Longitudinal, conversational data from three Chinese beginner learners of Swedish were analyzed. First, it is shown that for these learners the acquisition of Swedish codas was U-shaped rather than linear such that they exhibited relatively high accuracy rates at early stages, lower accuracy rates at later stages, and again high accuracy rates at more advanced stages. It is also demonstrated that the epenthesis-deletion differential is closely related to second language proficiency in that the proportion of epenthesis to deletion errors increases over time. Furthermore, the data show that word-final codas that are relatively important for the retention of semantically relevant information generate lower overall frequencies of simplification and greater epenthesis-deletion proportions than codas containing information that is relatively recoverable from other segments or features in the context.

Previous studies showed that vowel epenthesis of initial /sC(C)/ clusters in the L2 production of L1 Spanish speakers is conditioned by several variable constraints, such as preceding environment, onset length, and sonority relations among onset members. This case study was designed to investigate whether the patterns obtained from elicited speech also hold for conversational data. A longitudinal corpus of spontaneous/natural speech from 1 adult L1 Spanish learner of L2 Swedish was used. The study confirmed most of the results from previous research, for example, that the frequency of epenthesis varies with preceding phonetic environment. However, the study suggested that a lowering effect of preceding vowels must be present, not just the enhancing effect of preceding consonants suggested by Carlisle (1997).

Results from a number of recent studies suggest that nativelike adult second language (L2) learners possess a high degree of language learning aptitude, the positive effects of which may have compensated for the negative effects of a critical period in these learners. According to the same studies, child learners seem to attain a nativelike command of the L2 regardless of high or low aptitude, which has led researchers to conclude that this factor plays no role in early acquisition. The present study investigates the L2 proficiency and language aptitude of 42 near-native L2 speakers of Swedish (i.e., individuals whom actual mother-tongue speakers of Swedish believe are native speakers). The results confirm previous research suggesting that a high degree of language aptitude is required if adult learners are to reach a L2 proficiency that is indistinguishable from that of native speakers. However, in contrast to previous studies, the present results also identify small yet significant aptitude effects in child SLA. Our findings lead us to the conclusions that the rare nativelike adult learners sometimes observed would all turn out to be exceptionally talented language learners with an unusual ability to compensate for maturational effects and, consequently, that their nativelikeness per se does not constitute a reason to reject the critical period hypothesis.

The following product–oriented study deals with translational norms operating in indirect translation of Hebrew literature into Swedish. The research was conducted as a contrastive study of Extra–linguistic Cultural References (ECR) based on Toury’s (1995/2012) coupled pairs and supplemented with Pedersen’s typology (2011). The material consisted of 3 x 136 coupled pairs excerpted from a collection of short stories written by an Israeli high–prestige writer Amos Oz and translated into Swedish through English. Both translations were carried out by high–prestige translators. The results suggest that indirect literary translation follows the adequacy norm in accordance with the hypothesis on high–prestige translation (Lindqvist 2002). The hypothesis on acceptancy norms operating in indirect translation is rejected.

The purpose is to investigate the characteristics that may be considered in academic Swedish Sign Language and which in turn will help a larger number of students produce their essays in academic Swedish Sign Language. Recorded material from lectures, made by four deaf graduates and from the Sign Language corpus, where two deaf academics were also involved, and some randomly chosen in-formants, were investigated. The results from the academic Swedish Sign Language were compared to the characteristics that identify with the academic American Sign Language. There need to be more knowledge and research on this subject.

SPRINT is a language intervention project aimed to study the outcome of a parental home training program on children’s language development and future reading and writing skills. This study, which derives data from the SPRINT project, intended to examine the possible effects of a parental-based film intervention. It was conducted on toddlers aged 18-21 months from the Stockholm area with at least one parent who has Swedish as a first language. Parents of 78 children participated in the study and filled in 3 SECDI-w&s questionnaires rating their children's productive vocabulary. Children were randomized to either the intervention or the control group. Results indicated that the interventiongroup demonstrated significantly higher scores over time, F (2,78) = 5,192, p < .007. In the light of previous research it is concluded that this intervention contributes to an increase in productive vocabulary. However, the scores of the intervention group did not exceed the average range for Swedish children in the same age span. Furthermore the possible impact of parental education and thepresence of siblings on productive vocabulary was discussed.

37.

Agbetsoamedo, Yvonne

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics. University of Ghana.

This thesis is a description of some aspects of the grammar of Sɛlɛɛ, a Ghana-Togo-Mountain (GTM) language, based on my own fieldwork. The thesis consists of an introduction and five papers.

Paper (I), Noun classes in Sεlεε, describes the noun class system of Sɛlɛɛ. It consists of eight noun class prefixes, four marking singular and four plural. They are paired in irregular ways to form eight genders (singular-plural pairs). Nouns agree with determiners, numerals and interrogative qualifiers within the noun phrase and can be indexed on the predicate. Nouns are allocated to classes/genders based partly on semantic notions.

Paper (II), Sεlεε (with Francesca Di Garbo), details the morphological encoding of diminution in Sɛlɛɛ either by the suffixes -bi, -bii, -mii, -e or -nyi alone or in combination with noun class shift. Augmentation is not expressed morphologically.

Paper (III), The tense and aspect system of Sεlεε: A preliminary analysis, shows that Sɛlɛɛ, unlike most Kwa languages, has a rather elaborate tense system encompassing present, hodiernal, pre-hodiernal and future tenses. The aspectual categories are progressive, habitual and perfect. Both categories often amalgamate with first person singular subject clitics.

Paper (IV), Standard negation in Sεlεε, deals with the negation of declarative verbal main clauses. This is primarily encoded by a high tone, sometimes combined with segmental morphemes, portmanteau negative tense-aspect morphemes and vowel lengthening. Each tense-aspect category has at least one particular negation strategy.

This paper describes the noun class system of Sl, a Na-Togo, Kwa (Niger-Congo) language spoken in the Volta Region of Ghana. As shown in this paper, Sl hasa noun class system with an equal number of singular and plural classes that are paired inirregular ways. The singular-plural pairs are referred to as genders. Nouns normally agreewith certain modifiers within the noun phrase. The agreement targets are determiners,numerals, interrogative pronouns and some adjectives. Outside the noun phrase, nounclasses may be indexed on the verb to signal long distance anaphora, a strategy thatspeakers rarely use. The paper provides a detailed account of possible semantic andcultural motivations for the assignment of nouns to a particular gender and/or class.

39.

Agbetsoamedo, Yvonne

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics. University of Ghana.

This paper discusses standard negation in Sɛlɛɛ. Sɛlɛɛ is a Ghana-Togo Mountain (GTM) Language of the Kwa group of the Niger Congo family. Standard negation is the negation of declarative verbal clauses. Different strategies are used in Sɛlɛɛ to negate declarative verbal main clauses depending on the tense and aspect category of the verb. The basic negation strategy used in standard negation is tonal alternation, with or without other negation markers. The other strategies are the use of portmanteau morphemes, affixes and vowel lengthening. Interestingly, in one and the same tense paradigm, different persons can select different negation strategies. There is syncretism among the 1st person singular forms of the negative recent past, the negative habitual and the negative perfect.

40.

Agbetsoamedo, Yvonne

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics. University of Ghana, Ghana.

This talk deals with the conceptualisation of temperature in some of the Ghanaian languages as reflected in their systems of central temperature terms, such as hot, cold, to freeze, etc. We will discuss these systems in the light of a large-scale cross-linguistic collaborative project, involving 35 researchers (including the present authors) and covering more than 50 genetically, areally and typologically diverse languages (Koptjevskaja-Tamm ed. 2015). The key questions addressed here are how the different languages carve up the temperature domain by means of their linguistic expressions, and how the temperature expressions are used outside of the temperature domain. Languages cut up the temperature domain among their expressions according to three main dimensions: TEMPERATURE VALUES (e.g., warming vs. cooling temperatures, or excessive heat vs. pleasant warmth), FRAMES OF TEMPERATURE EVALUATION (TACTILE, The stones are cold; AMBIENT, It is cold here; and PERSONAL-FEELING, I am cold), and ENTITIES whose “temperature” is evaluated. Although the temperature systems are often internally heterogeneous, we may still talk about the main temperature value distinctions for the whole system. The Ghanaian languages favour the cross-linguistically preferred two-value systems, with water often described by a more elaborated system. An interesting issue concerns conventionalisation and frequency of expressions with a primary meaning outside of the temperature domain, for temperature uses. For instance, the conventionalised expressions for talking about ‘warm/hot’ in Ewe involve sources of heat (‘fire’) and bodily exuviae (‘sweat’). The Ghanaian languages often manifest numerous extended uses of their temperature terms. However, strikingly, none of them conforms to one of the most widely quoted conceptual metaphors, “affection is warmth” (Lakoff & Johnson 1999:50), which is also true for many other languages in (West) Africa and otherwise.

42.

Agbetsoamedo, Yvonne

et al.

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics. University of Ghana, Ghana.

Di Garbo, Francesca

Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Linguistics, General Linguistics.

This paper investigates the encoding of temperature in Sɛlɛɛ, a Niger-Congo language of the Kwa group, spoken in Ghana. The lexicon of temperature in Sɛlɛɛ consists of six central and two non-central temperature terms, distributed among the word classes of nouns, adjectives and verbs. The grammatical constructions associated with temperature evaluation vary according to the word-class status of each temperature term and its contexts of use. The distribution of the different grammatical constructions according to different types of temperature evaluation is discussed in the paper. Metaphorical uses of temperature-related terms are also discussed in the context of neighbouring and highly related languages. Finally, special patterns of temperature evaluation in connection with water are surveyed.

This article highlights and discusses a young woman’s experience of language use and language development. The woman’s story, which spans a period of fifteen years, starts with her escape from Afghanistan and illustrates her socialisation into Swedish society. The analysis is based on Paul Ricœur’s theoretical framework that is grounded in hermeneutic and phenomenological traditions. Ricœur tries to capture our experiencesof being the same person though we are constantly changing, making his thoughts onstorytelling and identity creation interesting to apply to the experiences of migration. Drawing on the concept of narrative identity, the article points to how narration connects time, how it expresses ethical dimensions and how the woman, little by little, develops an increasingly transnational and inclusive identity. The value of studying new arrivals in a longitudinal perspective also becomes clear as the analysis includes crucial turning points in terms of attitudes and strategies in relation to second language use.

The aim of this paper is to examine the role of language dominance in loanword phonology. It is investigated how onset clusters in loanwords are integrated into Turkish by two groups: English-Turkish bilinguals in Turkey and Swedish-Turkish bilinguals in Sweden. It is hypothesised that the bilinguals in Sweden will display significantly higher rates of cluster adoption because Turkish is not the dominant language there.

The data were collected through an oral loanword elicitation task, a text recitation task in the second languages and a questionnaire on language proficiency and use.

The study had 53 participants (24 in Turkey and 29 in Sweden). The material consisted of 29 loanwords from English and French, and of 50 structurally comparable words in the bilinguals’ second languages. The data were analysed auditively by the author and subjected to an interrater reliability test.

The results confirmed the hypothesis as the bilinguals in Sweden displayed significantly higher cluster adoption rates. The difference between the groups’ medians was 36.5 percentage points. Furthermore, it was shown that in individual speakers the combination of accurate second-language pronunciation, and clearly higher proficiency in the second language (corresponding to the donor language) compared to the L1 (i.e. the recipient language) guaranteed very high cluster adoption rates.

This paper provides the first rigorous quantitative proof for the theoretical assumption that accurate pronunciation is not sufficient for structural adoption in loanword phonology but needs to be complemented with sociolinguistic variables. Furthermore, it demonstrates in greater detail than before how societal and individual dominance are connected and through which channels they impact loanword integration.

Self-reported relative proficiency in the donor language was shown to be a powerful predictor of the sociolinguistic incentive to adopt and could therefore be used as a quick and reliable alternative to elaborate and time-consuming attitude investigations in loanword phonology.

This essay investigates how certain word-final Swedish rimes are integrated phonologically into Turkish by means of suffixation. Specific Swedish rimes have been selected for their unusual characteristics from the perspective of Turkish phonology such as vowel and consonant quantity as well as coda phonotactics. The data have been collected in an experiment, which involved the oral translation of a Swedish text including potential borrowings such as proper names and place names. The participants were advanced bilingual speakers of the standard varieties of Turkish and Swedish living in Stockholm. Two phonological properties of Turkish are relevant for this essay. Firstly, every word-final rime must have a vocalic, palatal and labial classification in order to be licensed for suffixation. Secondly, Turkish has a large and diverse periphery in its phonological lexicon due to faithful or partially faithful adaptation of a plethora of historical loanwords. The focus of the investigation is if the new borrowings are integrated into the core or into the periphery of the Turkish phonological lexicon or alternatively how faithful their integration is to the Swedish originals. In terms of resolving j-final coda cluster problems, the popular strategies are found to be palatalization, deletion and metathesis. The main body of data displays low faithfulness to the Swedish originals as well as an underutilization of the Turkish periphery. The participants are found to use the periphery of their phonological lexicon to a high degree for established words in Turkish but only to a limited extent when adapting new borrowings from Swedish into Turkish. This finding is explained by the fact that the structural and sociolinguistic conditions are not conducive to periphery maintenance in the present context in contrast to the historical context during the inflow of Arabic and Persian loanwords.